How to Set Up a VPN: Step-by-Step Guide for Every Device

What you need before you start

Setting up a VPN takes three things: a device with internet access, a RobinGood VPN account, and a client app that speaks the VLESS and ShadowSocks protocols. You don't have to buy anything up front — every user gets one free trial period with its own limits, and it can be picked up in the Telegram bot, in the mini app, or in the dashboard, so you can test the vpn against your own ISP and your own services before paying. We do not ship a client of our own for the whole system, and that is a deliberate decision: we hand over the configuration, and the tunnel is brought up by one of the proven open-source clients. The single program we build ourselves is the RobinGood VPN extension for Chrome, and it covers browser traffic only. This approach saves time and removes any dependence on a single program — you can use one client on your computer and another on your phone while staying on the same account. Answer one question for yourself beforehand: do you need access across the whole device or only in the browser. That determines your choice at step two, and it also decides whether you will have to configure exceptions for banking and work apps.

Step 1. Get access in the Telegram bot

Open the RobinGood VPN bot in Telegram and launch it with the start button, and if the messenger will not open, go to the dashboard instead: the account and the key there are the very same ones. The account is created automatically from your profile — no separate registration with an email and password is needed. Then pick the trial period or a plan: in the first case access is granted immediately, in the second after payment, and the available payment methods are shown at the payment step itself. Once the subscription is active, you receive a connection key: a long string carrying the server address, the protocol, and your credentials. The same string and all settings are visible both in the bot and in the dashboard — work from whichever is more convenient. The key is personal — don't publish it in chats or on forums, otherwise strangers will start using your connection and you will run into your plan's device limit. Copy the string with the copy button rather than by selecting it with your finger: long keys are easily truncated, and a truncated key looks valid but will not connect. If the key does leak, reissue it in the dashboard: the app hands out a new string in place of the old one, and the old one stops working — no separate revocation step is required.

Step 2. Choose a client for your device

A client is the program that reads the configuration and brings up the secure tunnel. We deliberately do not build a client of our own for the whole system: proven open-source clients update faster, cover every major platform, and require no trust in new code. There is one exception — the RobinGood VPN extension for Chrome: the browser scenario is easier to cover with our own code, so we develop that ourselves. The choice depends on your system and on what exactly you need to protect — all of the device's traffic or only browser tabs. For Windows, macOS, and Linux take a desktop client, for a smartphone a mobile one, and for a work laptop where corporate software must reach the network directly a browser extension is enough. Install the client only from a trusted source — an app store or the developer's site: builds from third-party sources regularly turn out to be infected, and the first thing they break is precisely the networking part. Bear in mind, too, that client availability in the Russian store keeps shifting: Happ was pulled from the App Store in March 2026, came back under a different name, and disappeared again in June 2026, which is why we keep the current install link in the dashboard — check against it rather than against a store search. Nothing stops you from changing your mind later: switching from one client to another takes as long as the first setup did, with the caveat that Outline accepts a ShadowSocks key only and does not work with VLESS.

• Happ — built on the XRay core, reads VLESS and ShadowSocks keys, has versions for desktop, smartphone, and Android TV, the universal default option
• Koala Clash — built on the Mihomo core, a desktop client with flexible routing and per-app rules
• Outline — a client for ShadowSocks keys, the simplest interface, suited to anyone who doesn't want to dig in
• The RobinGood VPN extension for Chrome — proxies browser traffic only, sign-in with your account, other programs go direct

Step 3. Import the configuration

Importing works almost identically everywhere: copy the whole connection key and paste it into the client — the program parses the string itself and creates a profile. Happ and Koala Clash have an entry for adding a profile from the clipboard or by subscription link, Outline accepts a ShadowSocks key in a separate field on the main screen, and the Chrome extension asks for no key at all: there you simply sign in with your account and the settings are pulled in on their own. Typing the server address, port, and encryption parameters by hand is unnecessary and unwise: a single typo produces a connection that doesn't work and is hard to diagnose afterwards, because everything looks right from the outside. If your client supports a subscription link, use exactly that — the configuration will then be pulled in automatically when servers are updated and you won't have to redo the setup. After the import a profile appears in the list: press the connect button and allow the system to create a VPN connection when it asks. This is the standard system prompt, and without it a system-wide tunnel will not come up; the Chrome extension is the exception here — it works inside the browser and asks for no system permissions.

Step 4. Check that everything works

Don't rely on the connection icon in the interface alone — spend a minute and make sure the traffic really goes through the tunnel. Four simple checks cover almost every typical setup mistake and immediately show where the problem sits: in the configuration, in the client, or in the network itself. If the address stayed the same, the profile was imported but the connection did not come up: check the toggle in the client and whether the system firewall is getting in its way. If the address changed but sites don't load, the cause is almost always name resolution or an outdated key. It's worth running the check not once at first launch but every time after reinstalling the client, changing the server, or updating the system: those are the moments when a profile most often stops working without the user noticing. Check separately the very apps you set all this up for — sometimes the browser already goes through the tunnel while a messenger or a game keeps working directly, because the client is configured for split tunneling.

• Open any IP address checker: it will show the address of the chosen server, not yours
• Open a service that wouldn't open on your network — the page usually loads in full, images included
• Play a video in high quality: as a rule the stream runs smoothly and does not drop its resolution
• Turn the vpn off and on again — the connection usually comes up within a few seconds

Step 5. Connect the rest of your devices

The same connection key works on a laptop, a phone, a tablet, and a set-top box at once, so there is nothing to set up from scratch. How many devices you can keep connected depends on the plan: each has its own limit, and the current figure is visible in the dashboard. The order of steps doesn't change — install the client, paste the key, connect. The easiest way is to forward the key to yourself in Telegram saved messages and open it from whichever device you need, instead of retyping it by hand from screen to screen. For Android TV televisions Happ will do: Outline has no Android TV build. You won't have to type the long string with the remote either — the client shows a QR code on screen and you scan it with your phone, since the television has no camera. Pick the nearest available server from the list: as a rule it carries a high-resolution stream without dips. For devices where no app can be installed at all, router setup remains: the whole home network then gets the secure connection, while the router itself takes only one slot out of the limit. Telegram is a separate story: it has an MTProto proxy that connects by link right inside the messenger and needs no vpn client at all.

If something doesn't work after setup

Most problems are solved in a couple of minutes, and nearly all of them fit into four checks. First make sure the subscription is active and the key hasn't gone stale: after a plan change or a server update the old configuration stops responding and the client silently times out. Then check the system clock: ShadowSocks-2022 drops a session if its timestamp diverges from the server's by more than half a minute, so even a small clock drift breaks the connection — turn on automatic time synchronisation in the system settings. Third most common is a conflict with someone else's VPN profile left in the system by a previous service: delete the extra profiles and close other clients completely rather than minimising them to the tray. If none of that helped, pick a different server from the list: one particular node may not respond from your network, while a neighbouring one usually connects straight away. When a route stops working on its own, access is restored without your involvement — there is no need to reconfigure the client. We have collected the full list of causes in a separate article on why a vpn won't connect. When you have exhausted the steps you can take yourself, write to the support bot and describe what you already checked — with those details the answer comes noticeably faster, and if Telegram is unavailable the same message can be sent to support@rgvpn.pro.